#Itgetsbetter

Memoirs in a Mirror; Ageless Love

Posted on by ROCK

Memoirs in the Mirror
Photo by Magnus Polla

As I write about broken heart’s being mended with Al Green singing in the background I am ushered into my most vulnerable piece of self. Love is renewable and must be revisited day after day, year after year. Rock was and is still very protective of my shattered and deepest self yet LOVE is a journey I once ran through, jumped over waves for and got lost in so deeply that I could not find my way back to who I am. I still inhale the smell of you even when you aren’t near and I still get jealous after nearly two decades of “us”. Remember our passionate first meeting? An autumn blend of whimsical laughter, intellectual virility, a chemistry so robust with first love sensations and our everlasting amusements, surely you recall? What about the sunsets in Amalfi, sunrises by the sea and how I looked across the table over coffee in to your eyes on the veranda and felt like I could fall out of my chair? Now in the mirror a version of me I am still trying to get to know. I hold on to our kisses in the lush Swedish forests, our dancing in the living room at midnight on New Year’s eve and the smile in your eyes when I once did something so simple as to make a hearty, warm soup from my heart to feed us. I can feel as if I am losing this battle with my body; I am not afraid of my pain, but of yours. Must you keep picking me up off the floor or guiding me when my balance is askew? Will I hold you back from finding out more about yourself? I want to walk through our life of mirrors and see everyday we had together; the tipsy Bloody Mary Sunday brunch in Andersonville, the heartache when we could not be together, you holding me in your arms and saying, “you’re the girl I always wanted”. I say “Bravo” for the way we have blended our differences into a special cocktail that tastes a tad like southern moonshine with a bit of je ne sais quoi. You know most all of me, my fears of losing those I love, my need to hold on and never let go of anyone and how I wish my childhood could be redone. You know how much I adored my big family, my mother and my insistance that we are not at all alike (but we are). You know how I hate feeling left behind, the story of not getting matching pajamas like my sisters, my pathetic need to repeat stories of my emotional scars, my greatest mentors and my need to have a best friend always and how afraid I am to be alone. You know I love pigs and bunnies and how I want to save the world around me, and how easily I cry when I realise I can’t even save myself. You know how to fix my drugs, treat my physical pain, how to handle my anger at myself for ruining plans, burning food, forgetting I am running a bath, forgetting one language and speaking another and you are still here, loving me despite my body’s falter, my mind forgetting my intentions. I lose my self into old songs, red wine and wish I coud promise to be here a long, long time. You are the boy of my dreams, too. I love you. I love you. I love you. You know I am repetitive.

Unlock My Sanctuary

Posted on by ROCK

It’s key is hidden, I misplaced it among my own feelings again. I am alone inside a body that lets me down, hurts me and I can’t get out. I see me walking like Jesus across the sea and then sink without a fight, drowning in my mysterious mind. I am so grateful yet undeserving of salvation. Sanctuaries for Love should be everywhere, not just for those seeking redemption from our earthly delights that were indulgent or a sinful play that some grand Creator would frown upon. The gates are always open to love more, release ourselves from our own arrogant beliefs. I am burdened by carrying me through life; how then can I carry some one else? I see a white wooden columned southern USA colonial home with a long drive and weeping willows, a big porch and spinning ceiling fans. I am the youngest broken one there and I try to cheer my southern company with kind regards and smiles. I am in a sanctuary where I no longer feel like a worthless woman. I make a difference because I am not in the agony that I rise and face each morning. I can quit because I will no longer ruin other’s good times or my own. I can be quiet. I can be kept and have tea and maybe sometimes I will wonder about Jesus and God and bad and good but I will be my own judge as my heart is pure.

Photo by Maria Orlova on Pexels.com

Romancing Pain

Posted on by ROCK

Dancing with Eyes Closed; Accepting Pain as Part of Me.

In the morning there are yellow dandelions surrounding me, lifting me up with a wash of spring hope. I am rinsed in the sun’s warm rays and feel determined. I always think I will feel better than I actually do. Is that my own stupidity or perpetual stubbornness? I dress and make it to the rich Italian red wine sofa and prop my legs up on a stack of pillows. The pain starts just after I proclaim, “I am better!” and I succumb to my surroundings. The walls are a light gray panel of wood, the ceiling white, the old barn’s tin roof I can see from the sofa is a rusty burnt red with brown dried clumps of moss separating it into unsightly squares. My pain I feel is visualized as an electric zap of steel, sharp silver, shooting up my legs and my silent scream is a maze of terrestrial hues. Pain shares with me every drop of it’s colour, of it’s beauty and it’s sorrow; like the northern lights and milky way it is so breath taking and hard to believe that it is real. Living in a state of chronic pain is anxiety provoking. My mind is a puree of sounds and I am often perplexed. Why can’t I be fixed? Why must my colours be so rare and overworked? My self portrait is black and white as I spilt any hope of beauty out onto the porous surface beneath me. “My pain”, I said to the chronic pain psychologist, “I’ve accepted.” My mind lied that day. I hate it, I hate my body and my bruises both superficial and within. No amount of prayer or drugs give me peace and like the wild scribbling made by a toddler with crayons I lay in a chaos of colour; I am a bottle with layers of dripping wax from many different tints of candles. I am beneath the surface, beneath the beauty, buried in a colour of pain. My eyes close and I stare at the daylight as if my eyelids were window shades. I don’t see why I should open my eyes except to write this pathetic complaint that haunts me. I want to be a happy rainbow one more time. One more moment of brilliance is all I ask. Like any desperate lover, Pain beckons me back, takes hold of me and says, ” I will never leave you alone again.”

Ghosts of You

Posted on by ROCK

Stalking my dreams, again I find you there, my fighting to wake and escape from unwanted memories. Why don’t you grieve, hurt or suffer? Why must I lug your trunk of tricks and misery everywhere I go? I feel sick when I come across your photograph smiling and surrounded by good people who don’t know your dirty and deeper secrets. I wonder if you know your own plays, remember the truth of who you are. No one is guaranteed a good life and that alone makes me doubt often any holiness, or sacred recipes exist for us plain ole daily folk. We get sick, die too young or are burdened with poverty, mental illnesses and responsibilities. We don’t run. Step by step we inch toward death with unfulfilled wishes that seem frivolous and only for the one’s that break the rules, sprint from their trunk overflowing with the messes they create, leaving behind their trash for the good doer’s to deal with. In my dream I beg to anyone, an entity of love and life to bar you from my sleep. I know that your dreams are not full of the pain you left others with. You dream of walks along the water, delicious cuisine, fancy clothes and being adored. You do not dream of the children you abandoned or your family that is simple and have stopped wanting more. I will never be “paid back”, you will get the golden egg and my heart will still stray sometimes to unwanted thoughts of you. Tiny bits of pain slip into my illusions, completely disagreeing with my longing for peace each night. Dear Holier, hopefully stronger Spirits fill my night with those who love me and lock the trunk so not even a thief’s expertise can reveal more tonight. Dreams please be kind.

🕊️ Forest Prayer

Posted on by ROCK

In the deep green, the lychee layers sprawl; in the deep green my heart expresses all. Above, soft blue sprinkles through the trees, a sigh of light lands on me. The stones hold memories, ancient muted songs of those who walked before me with their own dreams strong. I pause to speak to the spirits around me, I call for them to help me see. Silently my grandmothers with wise women sing, of love, death and all in between. The wind so cool playing with branches gently swaying as my soul enhances. I want to weep yet I am boldly compelled to seek out guidance and perhaps a spell. If I can heal my child’s pain with divinity, I beg that you share your sacred recipe. Dear Mother of our forests breath, I will forsake all for my bequeathed. Take her pain and rinse her despair, show me again how she will fair. Within herself, give back her smile and lead her through this desperate trial. I walk away and ask once more for you to open her heart’s closed door. A Mother so vast, so grand as you must reach out and take her hand. Remember when she was so content, her love so easy, her innocence? Deep green forest and strong tall trees, lift her fog. Blessed Be.

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Born to Fly

Posted on by ROCK

From birth we bloom into small pieces of our influencers; be they biological, guardians or our adoptive family, they mold us and reinforce our beliefs. They can be good or bad and some down right insane. Lm comes from a broken one, a narcissist, sociopath, alcoholic, fraud. At some point in time we have a chance to release ourselves from the bondage of all negativity, hurt and wrong, after wrong, after wrong. I am not responsible for my father’s failures, dishonesty and lack of stability within himself. He had chances to show by his actions that he did give a shit. To do better. To live on a good path. He couldn’t do it. It was not impossible; it was a lot of hard work and his blue eyed white freckled privledged ass got him in and out of places, spaces, around rules, regulations, and he was a damn good con artist. But hard work he was too good for. He portrayed himself as the educated, worldly, white collar type. All starched and pretty when he really was just like thousands and thousands of others who’ve hailed from the “projects” of larger USA cities. He was a product of the government’s way of helping out people, of all creeds, races and dreams to bunker down and guess what to do with the rest of their lives. He would escape because he could lie himself into a better world. I watch all these fraudulent Netflix true stories and keep expecting him to be found and investigated. How the hell has he gotten away with his ugliness? There are many black men and women who have struggled legitimately to rise above their strife. Not everyone is leaning on a junkyard dog selling smack to babies. I was lifted from this strange and perilous lifestyle by my mother. She worked her ass off and honestly fought to the top. My father screwed around with his polluted version of his reality for years, yet still believes he is better than the rest. His current wife, the enabler and also younger than me he has used and abused; let’s agree it is their story to tell. I can only say that if you have one door slightly opening for you to “UP Your Self “, broaden your life and be better than those who have wronged you go for it. Hanging back because it feels comfortable or an anihilation of your duty to family togetherness is what the weak choose. They don’t run when their own sibling bleeds. As the Black Sheep I, Lm, am free because the one who was to teach me right from wrong left me with a puzzle with lots of pieces missing. ROCK puts these pieces back together and intel comes in slowly but surely of more lies upon lies that bury BaDDaD’s front. Behind those cold blue eyes are mounds of unearthed relics. The feeling he continues to project upon new people in his life makes them feel like royalty. They don’t see the grinding of his teeth, the tensing of his jaw when he is deciding his next move. But Lm does. He is 79 years old and can’t bare to to reveal his reality within. If he did, he’d be alone. That won’t happen because one thing that this white, nice looking well dressed man has that women of any color, men who are not white and those who have based their lives on trust, faith, love, TRUTH and honor is he will succeed in keeping his lifestyle through selfishness and living on lies. He will survive because he is a master of his craft. He recreates his name and his madly perceived world repeatedly. Does he or any bad man ever truly pay? Is their any truth to karma, any paybacks or divine intervention? I don’t know anymore. I just know a bad thing when I see it coming because I learned what a bad thing was growing up and running far away from my trauma and triggers was all I knew, until ROCK pulled me to my feet. I still pray just in case there is a higher deity who will show me that my own suffering has not been in vain. ROCK wants BaDDaD to pay for his violations of the heart, the lies, the life he has led. Lm has no belief in retribution. Lm just wants to be heard because she is good. She was always good and yet has days in which her mental anguish is so forceful she must go back down the stairwell and wait for some light again.

Gently Lay By Me

Posted on by ROCK

In the middle of my night and the morning light I often feel my heartbeat’s whisper. In the black starless sky I know now that I am healing, heading for a choir of unbroken bonds, true meaning, countless moments of Love that’s mine. I shake loose the shackles of my past, I no longer need to remember him, the One who was to be my lifetime protector. I lay BaDDaD to rest as my father. I see beyond my physical ability into a rainbow of shimmering passion, a place so blessed and perfectly mine. No longer will my heart be full of muddy trenches and unfathomable pain. He is gone now. He is a good story for someone else to tell. Like a child I make a wish and toss my golden coins into the sea. I know it will take a very long time to sink to the bottom and perhaps they will become lost treasures among sea glass and pebbles in wavy sand for some one new to find. I ask the spirit of innocence, the power of genuine trust to comfort me. Lay beside me now. Let my heartbeat’s whisper belong in good hands, sister to sister, teacher to child, mother to daughter and lover to lover. May I save the rest of me and float softly into my dreams without fear. Amidst my sleep I beckon no fear to wake me, shake me and remember the lost One. Come, lay by me. Gently sing my heart to rest; Gently Lay By Me my Love, your devotion is my breath. If a star should shine tonight it is just for you, the love who stayed steady when I was almost through. The air is cool with springtime winds and following my heart always wins. Goodnight my love, my lifelong friend, let me sleep beside you once again.

Running Off Track

Posted on by ROCK

Littleme, that is Lm, has a very bad drawer full of horrible, never released from her grip memories. They come from so far away but changed her entire life entirely when three words were said to her, “I love you”. By now she’d moved north to the east coast, the Mason Dixie line and Maryland’s capital, Annapolis. She was so stuffed with emotions, drowning in her regurgitated pain and felt smothered. She hoped this move would save her from hiding in the closed gymnasium during lunch, standing on toilet seats quietly, stealing cigarettes and never eating without self punishment. Sit ups and runs and more sit ups and excuses to hide her body from an ounce of flesh. It was her last chance at control. When walking along the city docks she loved the ting-a-ling sound of sailboats moored in neat rows, the fisherman pulling up baskets of crabs and the liveliness and freedom she’d not known before. Walking shop to shop, discovering alleyways and for once, even if BaDDaD had no time for her she was breathing calmly. A solemn walk around the historical homes, perfected gardens and boys eyeing her felt good. She was registered into a Catholic school as it was nearby and she could walk there in the morning sun or fog from Elle and BaDDaD’s home and her soft and sweet smelling sister that Elle had blessed her with. She loved her uniform which made her fit in without much judgement but make-up was frowned upon. Only three other girls wore make up in school and they were pushing buttons and perimeters. She didn’t want to push anything, just be loved. The one who got her attention was sly. Not that great of a young man but his younger brother was in her class. He was a straight A student and she had been also until she stopped caring. One sunny spring day, late March, perhaps it was St. Patrick’s Day, two older guys were sitting drinking canned beer from a small boat at a prime spot to see all the passersby. Lm walked past and a guy called out to her with messy blonde hair with eyes that looked like shiny blue gems. He asked her if she knew his brother and introduced himself. Both of these rowdy over twenty- one year old guys were brothers to a boy her age in her religion class. She presumed they could not be dangerous and obliged them with coy and polite conversation. The tornado of events and fucked up-ness that was unleashed from that point changed her entire life, her belief in Love, yes, the one with a capital “L” ; shame was all she felt. Her father was sometimes trying to keep the two apart but what could he do really? Parenting is a full time job and he couldn’t hold one down in his past so it was obvious he wouldn’t have the answers. The boyfriend pursued and among one of the places he lived was on an old fishing boat with his best friend at the time nicknamed, “Mo’. Lm hopped off her bus often just before her own stop over the drawbridge downtown. She had a craving for Love and he was meeting her needs even if he was a lying predator and a drunken druggie whom she obliged on a sinking boat. He always had weed and every drug imaginable. He told her how he liked her hair, what clothes suited him the best and mostly how to satisfy his sexual needs. What she didn’t know was he kept an entourage of young women to keep him happy and his demolition of Lm’s mental health would benefit him and confuse her for years to come. Nobody was stepping in or up to save her. He gave her an STD of some kind and she was terrified of seeing a doctor. She was absolutely nothing. Ruined. Used. Lost and lost again and again. To this very second Lm has not forgiven him or his friends who lied and withheld his sexual meanderings. Not even now can she let go. He soaked her in lies and words so tender yet he was the true definition of a monster. BaDDaD and this guy were much more alike than she realised. Within she had this desperate pleading need for her father and soon she would transfer all of her attachment issues onto this very bad man. She began failing classes, running away from her BaDDaD’s often to see her very unhealthy “boyfriend”and she would lose many opportunities for fun with good friends because she was always afraid of losing him. Eventually she did; his father intervened and he was sent to Maine for his Captain’s license and planned to join the merchant marines. She wrote letters, called often and even took me of BaDDaD’s credit cards and flew to Boston and then took a bus to Maine. The sheer vulnerability she carried was taking her down. She was on the Titanic and no one was going to throw her a life vest. It was one of the most pivotal changes she would go through and at her lowest point she had no one to talk to or see her suffering. BaDDaD just wanted her to be beautiful and continue to idolize him, which she did for many rocky years. Putting this drawer away so Lm doesn’t dare to dream of the nasty, cruel boyfriend. There will be much more on the wild, unreigned years of her life. No one knew, NO ONE how bad she felt inside and she would learn much later that men hurt you. The nice ones didn’t want her. A sweet friend paraphrased her redundant lack of genuine suitors as, they perhaps felt “out of their league” and intimidated by her beauty; she would carry a sense of a strange faithfulness to the horrid sleazy guy who used her nativity for his personal gain. The #METOO movement has brought Lm to her demons door and she will forge straight on telling her TRUTH. Rock will help her from swirling down the drain.

His Truth or Mine?

Posted on by ROCK

“Going Round in Circles..gonna fly high like a bird up in the Sky, sky skyeeee”

It’s not right! Wrong! You’re lying! You do not know what you are talking about. You are a fool! Your truth or mine? We use many words to express our anger because the one in front of us does not believe our words. Maybe, we do it because their words do not agree with our reality rather they’re influenced by the eschewed abyss presented by film makers and social media, marketing and societal comparisons.

Regardless, ROCK knows what’s true and hammers on, not leaving one piece of Lm behind; he will never give up on telling her story, and the stories minor or major and the one’s seemingly unimportant will all give her the ability to be whole, to split and peel away from him and he will let her go. She will fly and be heard, safe and healthy. Lm is not even close to being understood. She is so buried and hidden that to get near her, really into her heart, someone must work very hard to prove they are worthy of her trust. When her father’s lies spilled over into her life, he reinvented her world without her ability to change his scheming; she could not stand up to his bite so she surrendered. It took her fifty plus years to do so. Now, she is not going to let her story be his to tell nor to fill with his polluted nonsense and she will expose every single detail about him. He may never know, but that’s not the point. Her story will be set free and she will soar above it all and for the first time in her life her wings will not be glued down, clipped or tied. To get there we must trudge on through the small things and the big events so she can be felt. She after all, was his golden daughter until she began to open her eyes and see him for what he was. A user, an abuser, a scam artist, a sociopathic liar and pervert; damn he could have been a winner for his performance throughout life is worth more Oscars than all the stars embedded on the sidewalks in Hollywood. He still has no clue that she has her sword sharpened and is ready and ROCK will be with her until she is prepared for her flight.

Oh, Suzanna.

Posted on by ROCK

Our abusers, be they family or not leave an imprint. BaD DaD could play the harmonica and the good times were real. Keeping the “Healing Contract” of NO CONTACT is very difficult during the holidays. “LittleMe” and ROCK know this time is often painful, melancholy and bittersweet. If you feel weak, buckle down, as this is your time to share Safe 💕 Love. That means caring for your own heart with delicate and real life protecting mechanisms. No matter what good you might recall, toxic and selfish parents, spouses and relatives do not get immunity because of any special holiday you might celebrate. They will never change. YOU must be the one who continues to heal, protect and promise that you, like “LittleMe” will remain strong and enough. Love YOU first.